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Blair stopped Corbyn’s #deselection? No, he wanted ‘show-trials’

Former Labour Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong has made a clumsy attempt in Saturday’s Guardian to guilt supporters of Jeremy Corbyn into abandoning hopes of democratically deselecting obstructive MPs – by claiming that Tony Blair saved the Labour leader from a similar fate:

According to the Guardian,

Armstrong tells The Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4 that Blair ruled out the move, taking the view that the party was “a broad church” and could “tolerate that level of difference”, despite Corbyn’s fierce and persistent criticism of his administration.

This leads the newspaper to describe Blair as Corbyn’s “highly surprising secret benefactor”.

A little history is inconvenient for this version of events.

In 2004, there were moves to arrange the ‘show trial’ deselection of MPs considered to be troublesome – or showing ‘serial disloyalty’ as it was described – to then-PM Blair, including one Jeremy Corbyn. A senior Labour source at the…